As a Web design and marketing firm, HRB is receiving more requests from its clients to develop websites that generate leads and sales.
Your website is the most powerful sales and marketing tool available. It works 24 hours a day, rain or shine, and represents the face of the brand to the marketplace.
Successful websites are not just pretty online brochures. They convert traffic into leads and sales. So, if you are going to put time, effort and dollars into driving traffic to your website, why not ensure you have the tools in place to capture lead information, automate responses to inquiries and offer content visitors want to see?
Many websites are missing these critical elements.
Build a Site for Leads
If you want your website to generate leads, it must be designed and optimized for that purpose. That means offering valuable free content about your products and services (in text, video or audio), giving visitors a form to sign up for your email marketing and optimizing each Web page with your Web keywords and keyword phrases.
Build Trust with Quality Content
In order to do business with you, prospects and customers need to trust you. Trust that you are who you say you are and will do what you say you will do. During the research and buying cycle, visitors are looking for the vendor that presents the lowest risk. Ensure that your website establishes your credibility by sharing your expertise through helpful blogs, articles and white papers or ebooks.
Use Offers to Attract Visitors
Offers such as free information, a limited time sale, or “buy two and get one free” are great ways to draw attention and traffic to your website. It’s imperative that when you get good traffic to make sure you are prepared to collect lead data on your website and follow up on each lead.
Always Use Calls to Action
In order to make it easy for your visitors, let them know what you want them to do next by including a call to action. Don’t make them guess that you would like them to sign up for your enewsletter, download something, take part in a contest or to contact you for further engagement. You can number the steps, if necessary, or provide a prominent form for them to fill out on all your Web pages. And, in general, increase their response by reducing the choices they need to make.
Respond Quickly to Leads
Companies often spend substantial dollars to generate Web leads, and use lead management and CRM systems to track them. Sometimes companies overlook how slowly they respond to these leads. A Kellogg Study on Lead Response Management revealed the odds of connecting with a lead increases by 100 times if attempted within 5 minutes versus 30 minutes. And the odds of converting a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes increases by 21 times.
Focus Content on Benefits
Website content should address company or product benefits, not just features. Potential customers want to know what’s in a visit to your website for them. Focus your content on how your product or service will make their lives easier, better or richer.
Analytics are Key to Success
Every website should have analytics software installed in order to see what’s happening on the site. If you never establish a baseline measurement for key performance indicators such as visits, unique visits, bounce rate and downloads you will have a hard time determining if you are achieving your website goals. Analytics are vital to determining site performance and can help you with testing to improve online results.
Great Websites Generate Great Leads
If your website is not generating any leads for you, it may be that one or more of the key items listed here is missing from your site. Contact us for an assessment of your site. We offer Web design and development services, as well as optimization for conversion of leads to sales. Let us know if you would like to take the first step to turning your website into a lead and sales generator for your business.
You might understand traditional media like the back of your hand. But when it comes to new or “newer” media channels, you probably have a difficult time discerning where your time and money is best spent. In fact, the Web 2.0 terms and its growing number of channels will just keep coming before you can figure out what they are, let alone how to use them.
I suggest you start incorporating Web 2.0 elements into your plan right now. After all, social media isn’t going away. According to the Nielsen Co. (2010), Americans spent 23% more time on social networking sites and blogs in 2010 than they did in 2009. The category has seen — and continues to see — exponential growth.
We’ve all grown accustomed to the idea that search engines take a word or phrase that you write, and then retrieve a list of results the search engines have determined is the most relevant to your search. One thing international businesses should take into consideration is these words and phrases change when they’re in different languages. Searching for something in english shouldn’t return results in a different language since the user won’t be able to get anything out of them. Not even the introduction of 
If you and your clients are interested in applying search engine optimization (
Unlike most companies during a recession, HRB is focusing on teaching rather than selling.
I was sitting in the duck blind just north of Clinton, Iowa about 30 years ago. I had my shotgun gripped tightly with the safety on. The ducks were flying right toward our decoys in a path that would lead them within 30 yards of our blind. I was ready to shoot my first bird and take my place as one of the great American hunters of our time. When the ducks were in range, my dad said, “Now!” I quickly pointed my shotgun at the ducks and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. I pointed again and pulled the trigger again. Nothing… the ducks were now out of range. My dad sat there smiling at me and patted me on the back. “Son, you have to remember to flip the safety off before you pull the trigger.” A little embarrassed, I rolled my eyes at myself and slouched back down in blind.
